History
The Estates-General of 1789
For a more detailed description of the events of August 8, 1788- June 17, 1789, see Estates-General of 1789
The calling of the Estates-General led to growing concern on the part of the opposition that the government would attempt to gerrymander an assembly to its liking. In order to avoid this, the Parlement of Paris, having returned in triumph to the city, proclaimed that the Estates-General would have to meet according to the forms observed at its last meeting. Although it would appear that the magistrates were not specifically aware of the "forms of 1614" when they made this decision, this provoked an uproar. The 1614 Estates had consisted of equal numbers of representatives of each estate, and voting had been by order, with the First Estate (the clergy), the Second Estate (the nobility), and the Third Estate (everybody else) each receiving one vote.
Almost immediately the "Committee of Thirty", a body of liberal Parisians, began to agitate against this, arguing for a doubling of the Third Estate and voting by head (as had already been done in various provincial assemblies). Necker, speaking for the government, conceded further that the third estate should be doubled, but the question of voting by head was left for the meeting of the Estates themselves. But the resentments brought forward by the dispute remained powerful, and pamphlets, like Abbé Sieyès's What is the Third Estate? which argued that the privileged orders were parasites and the Third Estate was the nation itself, kept these resentments alive.
When the Estates-General convened in Versailles on May 5, 1789, lengthy speeches by Necker and Lamoignon, the keeper of the seals, did little to give guidance to the deputies, who were remanded to separate meeting places to credential their members. The question of whether voting was ultimately to be by head or by order was again put aside for the moment, but the Third Estate now demanded that credentialing itself should take place as a group. Negotiations with the other estates to achieve this, however, were unsuccessful, as a bare majority of the clergy and a large majority of the nobility continued to support voting by order.
The National Assembly
Sketch by Jacques-Louis David of the National Assembly making the Tennis Court Oath
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Sketch by Jacques-Louis David of the National Assembly making the Tennis Court Oath
For a more detailed description of the events of June 17, 1789 - July 9, 1789, see National Assembly
On May 28 1789, the Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now meeting as the Communes (English: "Commons"), proceed with verification of its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so, completing the process on June 17. Then they voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People". They invited the other orders to join them, but made it clear that they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.
Louis XVI shut the Salle des États where the Assembly met. The Assembly moved their deliberations to the king's tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath (June 20, 1789), under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution.A majority of the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did forty-seven members of the nobility. By June 27 the royal party had overtly given in, although the military began to arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from Paris and other French cities. On July 9, the Assembly reconstituted itself as the National Constituent Assembly.
The National Constituent Assembly
Liberty Leading the People
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Liberty Leading the People
The storming of the Bastille
For a more detailed discussion, see Storming of the Bastille
On July 11 1789, King Louis, acting under the influence of the conservative nobles of his privy council, as well as his wife, Marie Antoinette, and brother, the Comte d'Artois, banished the reformist minister Necker and completely reconstructed the ministry. Much of Paris, presuming this to be the start of a royal coup, moved into open rebellion. Some of the military joined the mob; others remained neutral.
On July 14 1789, after four hours of combat, the insurgents seized the Bastille prison, killing the governor, Marquis Bernard de Launay, and several of his guards. Although the Parisians released only seven prisoners; four forgers, two lunatics, and a dangerous sexual offender, the Bastille served as a potent symbol of everything hated under the ancien régime. Returning to the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), the mob accused the prévôt des marchands (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of treachery; his assassination took place en route to an ostensible trial at the Palais Royal.
The king and his military supporters backed down, at least for the time being. Lafayette took up command of the National Guard at Paris; Jean-Sylvain Bailly, president of the National Assembly at the time of the Tennis Court Oath, became the city's mayor under a new governmental structure known as the commune. The king visited Paris, where, on July 27, he accepted a tricolore cockade, as cries of vive la Nation "Long live the Nation" changed to vive le Roi "Long live the King".
Nonetheless, after this violence, nobles, little assured by the apparent and, as it proved, temporary reconciliation of king and people, started to flee the country as émigrés, some of whom began plotting civil war within the kingdom and agitating for a European coalition against France.
Necker, recalled to power, experienced but a short-lived triumph. An astute financier but a less astute politician, he overplayed his hand by demanding and obtaining a general amnesty, losing much of the people's favour in his moment of apparent triumph.
By late July insurrection and the spirit of popular sovereignty spread throughout France. In rural areas, many went beyond this: some burned title-deeds and no small number of châteaux, as part of a general agrarian insurrection known as "la Grande Peur" (the Great Fear).
The abolition of feudalism
For a more detailed discussion, see The abolition of feudalism.
On August 4, 1789, the National Assembly abolished feudalism, sweeping away both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate and the tithes gathered by the First Estate. In the course of a few hours, nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies, and cities lost their special privileges.
While there would follow retreats, regrets, and much argument over the rachat au denier 30 ("redemption at a thirty-years' purchase") specified in the legislation of August 4, the course now remained set, although the full process would take another four years.
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